The Weekend's Coming!
by Ruler of Humans
Summary: Alright, maybe I was a bit overexcited. After all, this weekend, I'm going to... Well, we'll save that for later. Based on Shuumatsu ga Yattekuru! by  sasakureP feat. Kagamine Rin.


"Guess what? Hey, guess _what?"_

"What?"

"_The Weekend's Coming!"_

Alright, so maybe I'm a bit overexcited. It's only Thursday, and there's a weekend _every week,_ right? But I think I have every right to be overexcited. After all, this is the weekend I'm going to…

Well, we'll save that for later.

Gray just stands there and takes it, just like always. He's always so stoic, just like those statues you see in front of libraries and the capitol buildings. It makes me think he's gonna grow up to be a doctor or a scientist, or something else big and important like that. Maybe that's why I like him so much.

We're walking home from school together, just like we do every day. We're neighbors, and we never like to ride the bus if we can help it. He just keeps his eyes in front of him and tunes me out, for the most part. I like to talk, see. Sometimes I wonder why a chatterbox like me is best friends with the quietest kid in class, but I guess it's just because I get to talk as much as I want around him. And he doesn't actually _tune me out,_ he's just not consciously listening to me. I know if I asked him, he could repeat everything I said in the last five minutes. He's the type who likes to listen to others. Of course, once he gets to talking about something he likes, there's no derailing him.

"So, how are things going with that robotic maid you're making?"

"She's not a robotic maid," he says as I giggle, "She's an Artificial Intelligence Android, and she's going quite well, actually." His defensive, yet slightly bemused tone is one I seem to be hearing a lot lately. "I still have to program her body to respond to her brain, but I can have conversations with her through the computer. I'm going to teach her how to play chess today. She always has so much fun playing checkers, and I think it will improve her problem-solving skills."

"Well, good luck with that. Hey," I chuckle, "Maybe if you have extra time, you can teach her how to bend over so you can see her-"

"Oh, _shut up!"_ he says as he nudges my shoulder. We're both laughing. _This is my favorite part,_ I think. _This is the part of him that I like._

"So, this whole 'doomsday' thing," he says as we begin to calm down, "All this stuff on the news… what d'ya make of it?"

"Heck, I don't know! Why do you always have to be such a downer?" He laughs, and so do I, but now we're both thinking. It really _has _been all over the news- nobody seems to talk about much else these days. I never pay much attention, though. It's all so _depressing! _

"They say Lauckton is one of the targets, though," he says, thoughtfully, "And my mom keeps talking about getting us evacuated. There's only so many fallout shelters, she says, and she wants to make sure we get a good one." He smiles weakly.

"Well, how's about this," I say, taking the first two steps up to my house in one leap. "I'll see if we can get ourselves in the same place. Then we can spend the apocalypse together! How's that? Cheered up now?"

For a moment he just looks at me. Then he smiles.

"I'll hold you to it."

He goes into his house. I go into mine.

* * *

The paper is blank. Just a big, blank expanse of blankness that's staring me in the face and laughing. I can't think of anything to write, nothing that can really show how I feel. There just aren't enough _words!_

_Hey… What does a love song sound like?_

_

* * *

_

Wow, I guess this is what they mean when they say that things "change overnight."

There were seven kids in class today. _Seven. In a class of twenty-six. _The teacher was gone, too. Of course, it's no mystery why they're all gone: they've already been evacuated.

Late last night, the military just rolled into town, all tanks and humvees and what-have-you, and someone in an important-looking military uniform stood up in front of town hall and made the announcement that they were going to start evacuating citizens.

_"The evacuation will be ongoing throughout the coming two weeks," _he said in this gravelly, no-nonsense voice. _"We urge citizens to go about their business as usual until you are evacuated."_

He didn't say what, exactly, we were being evacuated from, though. Or even when it was coming. That's what freaked me out the most. Gray's mother was talking to my mom for hours after it happened; I wasn't _really _supposed to be listening, but I couldn't sleep.

"They can't get everyone out in time," my mom was saying. She had a cigarette in her mouth, puffing nervously. My mom hasn't smoked since I was three. "That's why they aren't telling us when it's coming. They don't want people to start freaking out."

Gray's mother just stood there, with a kind of punch-drunk look on her face, nodding and holding Gray's three-year-old sister. One of the military people had come to their house just after the announcement was made. I didn't know until later, but it turns out they wanted to talk to him about his robot. See, Gray's smart. Like, really, _really _smart. He's been getting letters from colleges since seventh grade. For some reason, the military is trying to design a "humanoid robot that can survive the coming events to carry on the legacy of humanity to whatever life-forms may find her." At least, that's how Gray put it. It's all really bleak, if you ask me.

Like we're writing our own epitaph.

* * *

"Hey, come inside for a second."

I stop. Gray isn't looking at me, he's just staring at his hand on the door of his house, but something in his voice tells me there's something wrong.

I follow him upstairs to his room. I've been here before, so the room, itself, is familiar; but it looks as though it's just been raided: there are clothes everywhere, several of his multiple computer monitors are stuffed haphazardly into their boxes, and what looks like a girl with really long, teal hair is sitting in a chair next to his computer, cords running from it to earphone-like devices on the sides of her head.

I haven't actually seen her complete before, so it's a few seconds before I realize that it's his android sitting in the chair, not a girl. He does something on the computer and an installation bar pops up on the screen, names of files running across it, too fast to read any of them.

"She's done?" I ask, reaching over to push her hair from her face.

"Nearly," he says. "I just have to finish installing her programming."

He still won't look at me. I can tell he has something he wants to say. I hate seeing him upset, so I just take to examining the android. This is the first time I've seen her put together fully, and I have to say, Gray did an amazing job designing her. A long time ago, when I asked him why he gave her teal hair, he said it was because she was going to be so close to human, people would need a way to tell she was really a robot. At the time, I'd thought he was being a bit full of himself, but now I realize he's right. If it weren't for the color and unnatural length of her hair, you could mistake her for a human- except that she wasn't breathing.

"Hey," he says, uneasily. His eyes are focused on a soil-filled plant pot sitting on his window. "Remember when we-… when we said we would stay in the same fallout shelter?"

I look up, surprised. "Yeah, why?"

"I don't think it's gonna work out," he sighs. "See, the military, they're… they're sending me to this special lab or… or something like that. For research, you know… And I-… I don't think they'll let you come."

I just sit there. I can't think of anything to say. I sort of go… blank.

"But that's why I wanted you to come over here," he says, in this forced cheerful voice. "I wanted to give you the android, I won't need her there, they've got-"

"When are you leaving?"

I don't have to think about talking, the words just sort of explode out of me. Gray looks up, startled.

"Uh… six… thirty, I think they sa-"

"Wait here," I say, already halfway to the door.

"What are you- Where are you going?"

"I'm packing my stuff!" I call up the stairs. He shouts something after me, but I'm not listening.

I jump up the porch steps and take the staircase three at a time up to my room, where I begin throwing whatever's within reach into a briefcase that's already half full, ready to be rolled out of town the next morning, when we were scheduled to be evacuated. I can't really tell what I'm putting in the case, my eyes are becoming too clouded with tears.

It's soft enough that I don't recognize it at first, but then it gets louder, like the irregular beat of some huge, mechanical heart off in the distance. I freeze, listening for the sound again. But when it comes this time, I don't just hear it- I feel it, a pound to my chest that winds me and knocks me to the floor.

I scramble to my feet and look out the window. In the town, several buildings are falling masses of rubble; some are burning. It looks like something from a movie, like my window has turned into a TV screen.

The rumble of car engines permeates the chaos slowly rising from the town below. The sound stops just outside Gray's house; at this distance, it's possible to tell the difference between normal cars and army vehicles. My heart skips a beat as I grab the case and a bundle of envelopes off my desk, then bolt to the door and take the staircase in a leap that probably twisted my ankle, but I just keep running, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

"Wait!" I shriek, swinging around the frame of the front door and drawing the attention of several officers holding very real-looking guns.

Sprinting up to them, I start asking to be let through, or at least that's what I tried to do; through my tears and panic, it probably sounds like a bunch of jumbled nonsense.

"Please step back, miss," commands one of them, gripping his weapon menacingly.

"Just let me through, I'm begging you!" My pleading does little to help, and I see Gray and his mother being lead out of the house and into the armored car.

"Gray!"

His head whips around and he sees me, he shakes an officer's hand off of his shoulder and starts to run toward me, but two more reach out and restrain him as one behind me grabs me from around the waist,

"There's not enough room," says one of the guys on Gray. "We're stretching the rules just bringing your family along, there's not en-"

"I don't care!" he shouts, extending one arm to me as he is shuffled onto the car. The engine begins to whirr, and the officers let go of me and jump on.

_"Gray!" _My voice cracks, only barely audible over the sounds of death coming out of the town. I stretch out my hand toward him, and he outstretches his, taking hold of the bundle of letters. I trip.

Then, like birds, the letters are scattered to the wind as the car jumps over a hole in the road.

The car speeds away, and I try to get up, but I must have broken something when I fell. I look down at my legs, and find that both are scraped and raw, one bleeding and struck out at an odd angle.

I start to notice the sounds coming from the destruction in the town below: police sirens, firetrucks; the sounds of death as buildings collapse and fires roar. The sky above, which would usually be a soft pink at this time, is a burning orange dotted with clouds blackened by smoke. The letters, still carried higher and higher by rushing winds, begin to descend like rain. I begin to sob.

"F-Fine, then," I say to the slowly shrinking silhouette of the truck in the distance. "I d-don't like you anyways!" I raise my voice, picking up a smoldered letter next to me.

"Just _leave!" _I toss the words and the letter forward with as much strength as I can muster. "Leave and _never come back! _I_ hate you!"_

The letters continue to fall about me as I collapse in a heap of tears, the fires of the town raging. One of them, with the envelope blackened and burned away, flutters down just in front of me. Just before I pass out, I make out the words written on the paper in my own , loopy handwriting. Words that I wrote because I wanted him to know how I feel, words that have become a love song no one will hear.

_Cherish yourself and the one you love._


End file.
